Children's Rights

Consultation response: Raising the Age of Referral to the Principal Reporter

Staf's response to the Scottish Government consultation on raising the age a child can be referred to a Children's Hearing to 18. Read more

Consultation on Children's Services Planning: provision of statutory guidance

Read our response to the Children's Services Planning: provision of statutory guidance consultation. Read more

How Staf is amplifying the voice of young people with experience of the care and justice systems

Ruth Kerracher, Youth Justice Participation Worker, gives an overview of Staf and CYCJ's new project to amplify the voice of young people with experience of the care and justice systems. Read more

Universal Children’s Day: how we’ll contribute to delivering children’s rights

Today is Universal Children’s Day, marking the day in 1989 that the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Read more

Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill – Ending the ‘Justifiable Assault’ of Children

Widely reported as the ‘Smacking Ban’, this Bill has recently been introduced to the Scottish Parliament by John Finnie MSP, with the aim to outlaw any form of physical punishment against children. Read our short summary of the Bill here. Read more

Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Bill – Standing Up for Scotland’s Children or Simply Standing Still?

Currently at Stage 1 in the Scottish Parliament, this Bill aims to change the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) to 12 years of age from the current level of 8 – the lowest in Europe. Our article questions whether the Bill goes far enough, and whether it truly works to support Scotland’s children and young people. Read more

Latest

Development opportunity for care experienced people

We are currently looking for care experienced people to help shape and inform the 'Learning Channel' which will host the legacy work of the Life Changes Trust
Lived experienced wanted for new OU Course

We're looking for those with care/lived experience to help develop a new trauma informed and relationship based practice Open University Course.
Participation Practitioner's Forum

Thursday 28th September 2023 | 10am - 11.30am | Online (Zoom)
Local Authority Manager's Forum

Wednesday 27th September 10am - 12pm| Online (Microsoft Teams)

Young Funder's Grant

Applications for the Young Funder's Grant are now closed. Alternative sources of funding are included here.
The Promise explained: what the Care Review means for the workforce

Scotland’s Independent Care Review has published its final conclusions. Five reports have been published and the main report ‘The Promise’ runs to 124 pages. To keep our members informed, we will set out the conclusions in a series of brief summaries.
Relationship Based Practice: What does it really look like?

Mary Glasgow facilitated one of our workshops at our Annual Conference 2017, setting out the principles of a restorative, child-centred and family-minded approach that aims to mitigate the effect of Adverse Childhood Experiences. Find out more and download Mary's presentation.
Grants of up to £750 available to care experienced young people

We are delighted to announce our Young Funder's Grant is now open for applications.
Local Elections 2022: Manifesto Round-Up

A look at the five main parties and their manifestos heading into the local elections 2022
Our history

Find out more about Staf's history, and the exciting work we are undertaking today.
GIRFEC: A Guide to Getting it Right for Every Child

GIRFEC (or Getting it Right for Every Child) is the national approach in Scotland to improving outcomes and supporting the wellbeing of our children and young people by offering the right help at the right time for the right people. Find out more about the GIRFEC approach.
Financial Support for Care Leavers
Shannon's Box

Created by Shannon when in role as our Youth Facilitator, Shannon's Box is designed to make entering care a little easier for children and young people. Find out more about this project.
Care-Experienced Voice

Staf has always had the voice of care-experienced young people at its heart. From the Debate Project to Project Return, The Real Toolkit and Youth Justice Voices our young people's voices have always influenced our work. Find out more about the voice of care-experienced young people.